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When should you institute levels?

Putting aside deliberately flat organizations, many startups and small companies also lack levels, simply because they aren't big enough to need to stratify or just haven't gotten around to it yet. Any one of the above reasons to have levels might drive you to start talking about them with your team.

How many levels is enough?

There's no one right answer to this question. As with most engineering questions, the answer is "It depends." One of the oldest example of levels is seen in the guild system of artisans or merchants. Guilds helped originate the idea of lifetime progression from apprentice to journeyman to master to grandmaster.

Are levels the same as titles?

Again, it depends. Titles are hard. The more interesting question is perhaps whether titles should indicate role or just level.

What might standard levels look like?

These levels probably aren't perfect, but they're probably a good place to start from, and iterate on if you decide they don't match your needs exactly. For reference, guild levels are mapped to every other level. This is because the guild levels are well defined historical ideas that help communicate without needing to define them every time you use them.

How do I implement this?

Another hard question! I'm gonna call this out of scope of this article, otherwise I'll never finish.